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TOBACCO 



SOME RESULTS WHICH FOLLOW ITS USE 



BY 



W. W. McELHINNEY 



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PRICE 25 CENTS 



JL 



SEATTLE : 

The Calvert Company 

1897 



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TWO COPIES RECEIVED 



'* FEB 151900 




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SECOND GOPY, 






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57232 



Copyright, 1897 

by 

W. W. McElhinney. 



TO THE YOUTH, 



tempted to acquire the tobacco habit, this 
friendly warning is dedicated by 

The Author, 



CONTENTS : 

Introductory — Why People Use Tobacco, 



Chapter I. Effect of Tobacco on Digestion. 

II. Effect of Tobacco on the Hair. 

III. Effect of Tobacco on Memory. 

IV. Tobacco and Intemperance. 
V. Tobacco and Business. 

VI. How to Quit Using Tobacco. 



TOBACCO 
Some Results Which Follow Its Use 



INTRODUCTORY— WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 

Out of every hundred thousand people, it is unlikely 
that there is one who has a natural desire for tobacco. 
Among thousands who use it, there are few who could 
not relate harrowing experiences undergone in over- 
coming the nausea and repugnance which their first at- 
tempts at smoking or chewing produced, though not 
many care to dwell upon the heroic effort required to 
establish tolerance of the weed in their vigorously pro^ 
testing systems. The courage and persistence, the un- 
wavering perseverance shown in circumventing this 
natural aversion, if turned into other and legitimate 
channels, might render possible any human achieve- 
ment. It is more than probable that many great men 
have been lost to the world because in their youth they 
frittered away the unconquerable energy and resolution 
without which nothing of worth in life is accomplished 
in the acquisition of the tobacco habit. Once fastened 



WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 



upon a victim, this habit takes so much of the strength 
required for daily mental and physical needs that no 
force remains for original enterprise. 

Since Sir Walter Raleigh introduced smoking to the 
fashionable set of his day, (for which grave offense Al- 
gernon Swinburne holds that he deserved the melan- 
choly fate which later overtook him), down to our own 
times, the tobacco habit has grown and thrived in spite 
of, or perhaps because of, frequent adverse legislation 
and prosecution of luckless offenders which hampered 
indulgence in the practice for a century or so. Thought- 
ful men, when pressed for a reason for using tobacco, 
are often at a loss to give one. Perhaps the spirit of in- 
quiry, of investigation on our own account, to which a 
sacred historian has attributed the downfall of human- 
ity, is largely responsible for the growth of the habit 
Children take greater delight in imitating the vices than 
the virtues of their elders, so that it is but natural that 
the sight of a man, possessed of great influence for good 
or evil in a community, abandoned to the joy to be 
found in an apparently soothing cigar or toothsome quid, 
should inspire in youthful minds a desire to go and do 
likewise; or that the stolen pleasure of a precocious play- 
mate, or the example of some indifferent member of so- 
ciety should fill a boy with a longing to try tobacco for 
himself; and the persistently watched-for opportunity 
will not fail to come when the means of making a per- 



WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 



sonal experiment will be within reach. Many a mother 
has had her heart wrung through having a carefully 
reared child carried or dragged into her presence suffer- 
ing from the effects of a first struggle with tobacco 
poison; and a wise woman is she who can meet such an 
emergency with the courage and tact which will make 
the first attempt a lesson for life. 

I well remember when the members of a club of 
young men and boys used to cite Ulysses S. Grant as an 
example of the successful general who always had a 
cigar in his mouth. After much debate on the subject 
it was decided that if constant smoking did not injure 
General Grant, and apparently it did not interfere with 
his securing Union victories, then the use of tobacco 
could not injuriously affect the club members who were 
prosecuting their studies, nor act as a hindrance to the 
ultimate success of those who were engaged in business. 
Tears after, when General Grant was dying a lingering 
and agonizing death from the effects of tobacco poison 
absorbed during many years of excessive smoking, the 
young men, who had acquired his pet vice, had begun to 
feel its evils, and sorrowfully admitted that they were 
mistaken as to its harmlessness in General Grant's case. 

One of the most amazing things in connection with 
the tobacco habit is the varied characteristics of the peo- 
ple who are its devotees. Prom the convict in his cell 
to the millionaire in his palace, from the gamin delight- 



10 WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 

ing his soul with discarded cigar stumps picked up in 
his favorite haunts to the cultured philosopher, dreamily 
watching his curling blue cigar smoke while he ponders 
some problem which confronts the human race, from 
the sturdy member of the tin-pail brigade, with his cher^ 
ished pipe, to the professional man, artistically coloring 
his meerschaum — all sorts and conditions of men, and, 
with reluctance be it said, some women, attest the seduc- 
tive charm to be drawn from the inhalation of burning 
tobacco; while in a lesser degree, and because to many 
the habit is repellant, chewing is practiced and enjoyed. 

We sometimes hear men say that they were encour- 
aged to use tobacco by some physician's opinion that it 
had a tendency to check corpulence, and that, were it 
not for its use, they would suffer from discomforting 
obesity. Since lack of exercise and an improper diet are 
the chief causes of an. excessive accumulation of fat in 
the case of a man in normal health, it follows that tobac- 
co cannot be healthfully substituted for proper exercise 
or remove the evils attending bad eating. Where cor- 
pulence is an indication of disease, the system has 
enough to do without adding tobacco to the burdens it 
has to bear. 

It is almost impossible for the young mind to under- 
stand the hold the habit has upon those who suffer from 
it. When a man declares that he knows tobacco injures 
him, but is unable to quit its use because the force of 



WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. ll 

habit is so strong, to the growing boy the declaration 
means that the injury is counterbalanced by the enjoy- 
ment derived from smoking or chewing, as the case may 
be, and instead of the admission deterring him, it stimiv 
lates him to try the pleasurable sensations himself. 
When he has satisfied himself that the habit is injuring 
him, there has been created within him a clamoring de- 
sire for the narcotic to which he has been at such pains 
to accustom himself, which he is unable to resist without 
throwing himself into a state of mental and physical 
torture incredible to the non-user, and which not one 
man in a thousand will willingly undergo. If parents 
and guardians fully appreciated their responsibility in 
this matter, they would not only see to it that the asso- 
ciates and instructors of the children intrusted to their 
care were free from the tobacco habit, and that they 
themselves did not prove stumbling blocks, turning 
youthful steps into the path of this vice; but, not content 
with the best environment procurable for their young 
charges, they would carefully impart to them the whole 
truth in regard to the effect of tobacco on the human 
system, and it is safe to say that the truth, dispassion- 
ately presented, would do much to prevent the form- 
ation of the habit. Fortunately, most boys have an am- 
bition to distinguish themselves in life, and to grow up 
in mental and bodily vigor. Many of them use tobacco 
because they think it a manly practice, and when they 



12 WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 

are convinced that smoking or chewing is a sign of 
weakness, and when they are satisfied that, because of 
the effect of the poison on the vital organs, their chances 
of success in life are materially lessened by the forma- 
tion of the habit, the best possible safeguard has been 
furnished them. 

More than thirty-five years ago, Dr. Richardson is- 
sued a pamphlet in which he called attention to the in- 
jury wrought by certain substances common to all 
varieties of tobacco smoke, among other things the free 
carbon, which irritates the throat, the ammonia that 
makes the throat and tongue of the smoker so dry, and 
induces him to drink as he smokes; the carbonic acid, 
which causes the sleepiness, headache and lassitude 
which follow a prolonged inhalation of tobacco fumes; 
and the nicotine, which produces the symptoms of tre- 
mor, palpitation and paralysis that ensue after excessive 
smoking. After a thorough investigation, he was of the 
opinion that smoking injures the stomach, the heart, the 
organs of the senses, the brain, the nerves, the throat 
(causing smokers' sore throat) and the lungs. Be it re- 
membered that this arraignment of tobacco was made 
many years before the cigarette evil called for prohibi- 
tive measures from State Legislatures and Boards of 
Education. If Dr. Richardson is correct, it is difficult 
to see what part of the human system comes out of the 
tobacco ordeal unscathed. Even among the friends of 



WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 13 

the habit, few will deny that, carried to excess, the 
effect is disastrous. It is impossible, however, to say 
what "excess" is in individual cases. Except in cases 
of great constitutional delicacy, the system accustoms 
itself to almost any poison if the doses are cautiously ad- 
ministered and gradually increased to meet the growing 
dependence of the body upon them, but there is always 
the danger of an "overdose." Anyone addicted to the 
habit knows that it takes a constantly increasing amount 
of tobacco to produce the sedative effect first experi- 
enced from its use, and that, like any other narcotic, it 
is only a question of time until the moderate user is 
likely to carry the practice to excess. 

To the confirmed tobacco user, his accustomed drug 
becomes the paramount necessity. A traveler once said* 
to me : " I never care for dessert with the prospect of 
a good cigar before me, and a bad dinner becomes luxu- 
rious when followed by the same soothing digester." 
If he had paused to realize the meaning of his own words 
he would have been slow to acknowledge that his favor- 
ite narcotic had lulled his stomach into indifference to 
needed food. 

It is difficult to see how anyone with a regard for 
cleanliness can permit himself to form the tobacco habit. 
The expectorations of the chewer are to be met every 
day in slimy pools on the sidewalk and elsewhere, to 
be thence transferred to the neat skirts of the woman 



14 WHY PEOPLE USE TOBACCO. 

passer-by , or to give rise to an impatient ejaculation 
from the lips of the first man who inadvertently skates 
into one, and nearly loses his balance. The smoker 
taints the air, his breath, his clothes, everything with 
which he comes in contact while smoking. A woman, 
in good health and at peace with all the world, not long 
ago took a seat on an open street car to enjoy the fresh, 
pure evening air. She was wholly unaccustomed to 
tobacco smoke, and when, a few moments later, two 
smokers took their places, one on either side of her, since 
smoking is not prohibited on an open car, she was soon 
literally between two fires. At the end of fifteen min- 
utes she left the car, dizzy and with a severe headache, 
the result of her quarter-of-an-hour's inhalation of to- 
bacco smoke. "There should be a law prohibiting 
smoking on all public conveyances, open or closed," she 
exclaimed indignantly, after relating her experience to 
a friend. "Unfortunately," he said, "you cannot legis- 
late decency into people." It is quite possible to educate 
it into them, however, and the boy who grows up with 
a healthy disgust for the habit implanted in his heart is 
not likely to acquire it in after years. 

In the following pages it will be the object of the 
writer to state, as clearly as possible, the effect of the 
tobacco habit upon the vital organs as demonstrated by 
his own experience and observation. 






EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 15 



CHAPTEK J. 
EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON DIGESTION. 

The importance of keeping the stomach in the best 
possible condition is so evident that the abnse of that 
hard-working organ can only be caused by thoughtless- 
ness or criminal carelessness. To the stomach is in- 
trusted the preparation of the food for the upbuilding 
of the tissues of the body, and if its work it not properly 
accomplished, the later stages of digestion cannot supply 
the lacking process. "Whenever the stomach from any 
cause fails to do its work, general disorganization of the 
vital organs follows. * The evil effect of tobacco is felt 
from its first introduction into the system. It is seldom 
indeed that the beginner fails to provoke a violent re- 
bellion in his stomach, causing the rejection of all the 
food it may contain at the time the attempt at smoking 
or chewing is made. Some stomachs are so well regu- 
lated that they positively refuse to tolerate tobacco, but 
an ordinary stomach, after several efforts at asserting 
itself, becomes quiescent, and permits the outrage to be 
repeated indefinitely. The use of tobacco has done more 
injury to the digestive organs than all other dyspepsia- 
producing causes combined. So complicated is the net- 
work of nerves which governs the secretions of the stom- 
ach, and so delicate its workings, that any injurious 



16 EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 

substance is immediately detected and in most cases re- 
jected. When the novice is admonished by his stomach 
to let tobacco alone, and fails to heed the warning, the 
effect of its continued use is to stupefy the nerves and 
leave them unfit to perform their duty; hence, when the 
stomach has been overloaded, or if the food is difficult 
of digestion, the sluggish nerves permit the food to re- 
main too long in the stomach, where it undergoes 
chemical changes unfitting it for the nutrition of 
healthy blood and tissue. In some cases this effectmaynot 
be noticed for months or years. Where the constitution 
is inherited from a long line of sturdy, clean-living 
ancestors, and is developed under healthy conditions, 
the results of tobacco-using are slow to appear. Then, 
again, where the use of tobacco is not begun until the 
age of 25 or 30 years, its effect on the stomach is not 
so marked, if the health of the subject has been good 
theretofore, for the process of digestion has been going 
steadily forward for so many years that it requires a long 
series of abuses to overturn it. Sooner or later, however, 
to the eye familiar with the outer evidences of the inner 
workings of tobacco poison, the evidences appear.40 The 
shallow complexion, the listless gait, the lack-luster or 
falling hair, the want of interest in everyday happen- 
ings, to an experienced observer tell the story of wasting 
vitality. Tobacco dyspepsia has at last claimed its vic- 
tim. 



EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 17 

Many there are who use tobacco and feel and know its 
evil effects, yet who have not the courage and strength 
of will needed to quit its use. The discomfiture to the 
nerves caused by withholding the narcotic to which they 
are accustomed appalls the victim, and instead of meet- 
ing his foe in a pitched battle and routing it, he resorts 
to every expedient to repair its ravages. Liquid stimu- 
lants are drawn upon, for the confirmed tobacco user 
is tormented by a perpetual thirst, and feels, too, the 
necessity for some relief from the depression caused by 
constant smoking or chewing. In stimulants a tempor- 
ary relief may be found, and as the depression is deeper 
and the outlook more gloomy after every glass, an 
appetite is formed for liquors that is all too likely to 
place the victim on the list of confirmed tipplers, or 
worse. 

Smoking is a form of diversion that nature never in- 
tended for human beings. Dust, dirt, smoke and 
offensive odors are disagreeables for which we entertain 
a natural and healthy aversion, and, although man is so 
constituted that if necessity arises he can survive ex- 
posure to these unpleasant things, yet his highest devel- 
opment demands pure air and favorable sanitary 
conditions. The voluntary introduction of smoke into 
the nostrils, throat and delicate air-cells of the lungs 
seems so foolish that a warning against the practice 
should never have to be uttered; yet hundreds of thou- 



18 EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 

sands go calmly on poisoning the air they must breathe 
with tobacco smoke, and compelling others to breathe 
it with them. If some of these countless thousands 
could only be prevailed upon to stop and think! It is 
not unusual to see young men who have inherited for- 
tunes very prodigal in their expenditures. From their 
actions one would be led to believe that money is made 
to be wasted, and that the great aim in life is to see how 
much one man can spend. So it is with young men who 
have inherited good constitutions which may be the 
crowning result of centuries of good living and well 
doing. For the mere gratification of an artificial appe- 
tite, they will ruthlessly destroy what it has taken 
thousands of years to build up. 

I cannot imagine any cause that could make life such 
a burden as the slavery of the tobacco habit. The utter 
hopelessness of existence to the man who finds his di- 
gestive organs destroyed, his brain almost powerless to 
think and his muscles to act, is apparent to any thought 
ful mind, yet it is the condition of many people we meet 
every day. Men tell you that they suffer from neural- 
gia, sleeplessness, rheumatism, nervous prostration and 
a host of other diseases distinguished by various pains 
and aches, and wind up the recital of their woes with 
some phrase about the strength of other years and the 
results of overwork. They know, if they are honest with 
themselves, and you know, if they are not, that they are 



EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 19 

suffering from insidious tobacco poisoning. Pain, it has 
been said, is the cry of a nerve for proper food. How 
can a nerve be properly nourished if the blood which 
feeds it is permeated with tobacco? Is it any wonder 
that in looking about us we see so many nervous wrecks? 
It ojily means that the nerves have not been fed, but 
poisoned. Men break dow r n from overwork, they claim, 
when the fact is that tobacco has caused the decline in 
their powers which they wrongly ascribe to labor. It is 
surprising the amount of work a healthy, well-nourished 
man can dispose of if he is free from the vices which sap 
his vitality, the most common of which is the tobacco 
habit. Instead of injuring, it develops and improve? 
him. The homely aphorism "It is better to wear out 
than to rust out" still holds good. The active, alert bus- 
iness man does not complain of, but welcomes work, and 
never seems to suffer from an over-supply. Many per- 
petually tired people are victims of the tobacco habit. 
Their nerves are suffering from tobacco stupor, hence 
that tired feeling. 

The use of tobacco is demoralizing in every sense. 
No one ever contracted the habit without soon realizing 
that his position in society was less stable, his chafrices of 
advancement in life measurably lessened, though he 
may be slow in attributing these effects to the right 
source, and slower still in openly admitting the true 
cause to his fellow men. 



20 EFFECT ON DIGESTION. 

If it were only for \\e enjoyment that it gives peo 
pie to meet men of sound physique, possessed of keen, 
vigorous intellects — such men as American boys are 
capable of becoming — it would compensate a thousand 
times for the loss of the enjoyment supposed to be de- 
rived from indulgence in the tobacco habit. 

CHAPTER II. 
EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 

The hair usually gives the first indication of a lack 
of nutritive elements in the blood. To the experienced 
eye, a horse or any domestic animal indicates in its fine, 
glossy coat that it is in a good physical condition. Man, 
like the lower animals, shows the state of his health in 
his hair. When we meet anyone with luxuriant, shin- 
ing hair, we set him down as possessed of good health. 
Such people are usually in good spirits, quick in their 
movements, prompt in their actions, and endowed with 
enormous vital force that carries them through the per- 
plexities and vexations of life with a minimum of wear. 

To woman a profusion of hair is so important that 
millions of dollars are annually spent for locks to sup- 
plement her crowning glory, that the wearer may give 
the impression that her vitality is great and her health 
superb. That this is so goes to show that women know 
what they need, and are usually prompt to remedy de- 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 21 

f ects for which inheritance, ill health or accident may be 
responsible. With men the case is different. While a 
healthy growth of hair is very desirable and stamps its 
possessor as strong and vigorous, yet baldness is so com- 
mon among men of this age that fashion is made to 
meet the changed conditions in this as well as in other 
respects. There are those who believe that we live in 
the hairless age, and from the number of bald-headed 
men we meet in every vocation of life, there is reason 
to believe that some great cause is at work to produce 
a sandpapered effect on the scalps of the men who will 
live to see the dawn of the twentieth century. Men did 
not always suffer from lack of hair. Though we find 
occasional mention of bald heads in the early history 
of the world, the cases were so rare that the person af- 
flicted with baldness was held up to ridicule by the 
children of that day, who were not accustomed to such 
a spectacle. 

Baldness was not so general 300 years ago as it has 
since become. Since the discovery and general intro- 
duction of tobacco, there has been a steadily growing 
tendency to baldness among those who use it excessively, 
and as the most highly civilized nations consume the 
most tobacco, it is in these nations we find baldness most 
pronounced. Go into an assemblage of uncovered heads 
anywhere in America or Europe, and note the number 
of bald pates in evidence. Three or four hundred years 



22 EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 

ago the unhappy owner of such a head would have re- 
sorted to any device to hide his scanty locks and avoid 
remark; but with the introduction of tobacco came an 
alarming increase in baldness and deterioration in the 
hair of those who used it, and a corresponding indiffer- 
ence to such a result. "While there is no doubt that the 
custom of wearing stiff hats has had a tendency to cause 
falling hair, they are comparatively harmless when we 
place against their account the ravages tobacco has 
wrought. 

The depression which follows excessive smoking is 
usually accompanied by headache and feverishness, 
which are relieved by indulgence in a few more cigars, 
to be in turn succeeded by more headache arid fever. 
In severe cases the smoker has a consuming thirst, which 
will usually lead him to use liquid stimulants; his tongue 
is furrowed, his pulse is rapid and his temperature high. 
When the whole system is so profoundly affected by 
tobacco poisoning, it is not remarkable that the hair 
cells, lacking healthful food, should cease to nourish the 
hair, or that it should become dry, lusterless and event- 
ually fall out, leaving a bare shining surface to proclaim 
to the initiated that the tobacco user has left all hope of 
hair behind. If, in addition to smoking and drying his 
hair, he encircles his aching, fever heated head with a 
tight hatband and a hat made of some airtight material, 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 23 

he will be enabled to burn out his hair in a shorter 
period of time. 

Women are not often afflicted with baldness, and I 
am convinced that as men, in normal condition, have bet- 
ter digestion and are better nourished than women, 
since their vocations give the majority of men larger 
opportunities for exercise, they would have greater im- 
munity from baldness than women if they would let 
tobacco alone. Where women are employed in the open 
air, as they are in continental Europe, their health is 
good and luxuriant hair is the rule among them. 
Though they live upon coarse and unappetizing food, 
pure air and regular exercise come to the aid of diges- 
tion, the food is thoroughly assimilated, the hair re- 
ceives its proper nourishment and responds in vigorous 
growth. 

Tobacco causes the hair to turn prematurely gray. 
We often see a tobacco user whose grizzled locks at 
thirty-five would do credit to the veteran of three score 
and ten. It is evident that tobacco is sapping his vital- 
ity out of all proportion to the pleasure he derives from 
its use. In some cases, his children will bear witness, 
in their dry, colorless hair, that their father was a slave 
to the habit. The children of the Jews show the effect 
of the tobacco habit in hair shades lighter than that of 
their ancestors, though all other racial characteristics 
may have been transmitted to them. At the present 



24 EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 

rate of change, in less than two hundred years it will 
be impossible to distinguish between the hair of a Jew 
and an Albino. 

Catarrh is, without doubt, provocative of falling hair. 
Add to the catarrhal poison and fever the further poison 
of tobacco in the blood, and augment the irritation in 
the nasal passages, throat and bronchial tubes with the 
dust, dirt and smoke of burning tobacco, and we make 
the more pronounced the train of evils following in the 
wake of an ailment founded, usually, in common colds 
and carelessness. 

A learned scientist has recently announced the dis- 
covery of the cause of baldness in a fungus-like growth 
which produces atrophy of the roots and final loss of the 
hair. Experiments with the "culture" upon rabbits, 
etc., have demonstrated that baldness can be produced 
upon them by this means. He is, however, still in the 
dark about the cause of this foreign growth. If he will 
turn his attention to tobacco as a hair-destroyer, he may 
discover that the fungi flourish best when fertilized by 
tobacco-poisoned blood. 

The protection afforded by a good growth of hair on 
the head is not to be despised. Those so protected sel- 
dom suffer from colds in the head, and sudden changes 
of temperature affect them but slightly, while the num- 
bers annually injured by exposing their thinly covered 
or bald heads at funerals and in other public assem- 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON THE HAIR. 25 

blages would be frightful to contemplate were the true 
figures obtainable. Suffice it to say that many good 
people have secured admission to the future state 
through such exposure, though they may have been ig- 
norant of its probable fatal effect on their unprotected 
heads. 

Those who wish to make a cheerful appearance in 
society should devote care and attention to the preser- 
vation of their hair. When the nutrition necessary to 
sustain a vigorous growth of hair is diverted from its 
proper channel by the use of tobacco, there is no recov- 
ery to the victim while he continues its use. I know a 
powerful hair restorative which has never failed where 
the papillae have not been destroyed by tobacco or some 
other evil cause; but no case has ever come under my 
observation where the individual persisted in the use of 
tobacco and was benefited by any scalp treatment. No 
one who values his hair at its true worth will ever put 
such a valuable appendage in jeopardy by the. use of the 
great hair destroyer, tobacco. 

CHAPTER III. 
EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON riEilORY. 

Of all the faculties bestowed upon us, not one ex- 
ceeds memory in importance; and no mental power is 
capable of greater development when properly culti- 
vated and guarded from evil influences. 



26 EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 

A well trained memory is capable of feats which 
would seem marvelous if their daily occurrence did not 
make them matter of course. Think of photographing 
on the living tissues of the brain the pictures of an ob- 
ject, its size, color, location — everything of interest in 
connection with it, and of registering in the mind at the 
same time the sensations of the person receiving the im- 
pression; then of being able to recall at will the object 
in its entirety or in any single detail, together with any 
or all of the feelings it may have inspired. Or, what is 
yet more marvelous, of the ability to impress upon the 
mind the ideas or sentiments of another as conveyed to 
us by tongue or pen, and to make them our own, to be 
reproduced at will with the same freedom as our direct 
impressions. A trained memory has a perfect record of 
every incident in life; nothing will be found lacking 
when occasion arises for the recall of any mental picture. 
To possess such a memory as this is to be most 
highly favored. It argues the possession of an alert 
mind, sound nerves, healthy blood and well nourished 
tissue. It presupposes trained powers of observation 
and a mind open to receive and make the most of im- 
pressions. The importance of training the memory in 
childhood when the power to reproduce impressions is 
at its best can hardly be over-estimated. A good mem- 
ory is a mighty factor in obtaining an education, and in 
acquiring the easy, pleasant manner which character- 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 27 

lzes the agreeable, educated person, because training the 
memory develops that habit of observation which grasps 
not only the weighty educational essentials, but also the 
little niceties which are of equal, or even greater im- 
portance in causing one's lines in life to fall in ways of 
pleasantness and paths of peace. 

In thousands of cases of phenomenal memory, some 
of which lie within the knowledge of everyone, the 
memory training was commenced in early life and con- 
tinued until the habit of attention was fixed and the 
mind drilled to register impressions with clearness and 
decision. To secure the highest degree of perfection in 
the performance of athletic feats, training must be be- 
gun as early as the sixth year. So in memory training, 
the drill should commence as early or earlier, and no 
less attention should be paid to proper food, clothing and 
exercise than if the object to be attained was the pupil's 
highest physical rather than mental development. 

Many things contribute to faulty memories. Inat- 
tention, thinking of one thing while doing another, 
reading newspapers and other ephemeral literature with 
the unacknowledged purpose of forgetting what we read, 
ill health, the use of stimulants, tobacco and other nar- 
cotics. Perhaps all other causes combined have not 
wrought so much injury to memory as the tobacco habit. 
It is acknowledged even by the friends of the weed that 
its use produces inertia and indolence. Memory train- 
ing requires continued diligent effort. Where memory 



28 EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 

is all that can be desired, every sense is thoroughly cul- 
tivated and acute. "When tobacco is used in youth sight 
and hearing become dulled, and two valuable aids to 
memory are disabled. To recall an impression, it is of 
the first importance that it should have been vivid when 
made. If it is not clear, it will be recalled in a mis- 
taken, misshapen form which will render it valueless 
when reproduced. In the trial of criminal cases, it 
sometimes happens that the life or freedom of the ac- 
cused may depend upon one irresponsible memory. 
While the character of the witness may be irreproach- 
able, it only gives additional weight to what may be an 
utterly inaccurate recollection of an important event. 

We expect nothing but dissatisfaction in any rela- 
tions we may have with a dull, listless person. If we 
ask for information which should be within his knowl- 
edge, we are not surprised when he fails to give an in- 
telligent reply. His listlessness betokens a lack of that 
wide awake interest which even everyday happenings 
require from anyone who wishes to do his share of the 
world's work as nature intended every man should. It 
is especially exasperating to a teacher to be told by a 
pupil that he knows all about a subject, yet to find him, 
when questioned, unable to support his boasted knowl- 
edge by a single correct answer. There is no doubt that 
for some reason the impression made upon the mind has 
been too indistinct to be recalled, 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 29 

The experienced teacher quickly realizes his helpless- 
ness when he is confronted with a pupil who is suffering 
from the cigarette habit. The lusterless eye and wan- 
dering gaze evidence the inability of the mind to con- 
centrate itself upon any subject. The physical exercise 
which the average boy is almost compelled to take, to- 
gether with the mental discipline he is expected to re- 
ceive, require good food, pure air and healthful sur- 
roundings in order that hi? body and brain may be well 
fed. It is essential that the pupil should be kept in the 
best possible physical condition, and, while the senses 
are most susceptible and impressions most lasting, brain 
and nerves should be trained to perform their duties 
faithfully and accurately. How can this be done when 
cigarette or other tobacco poison is subtly stealing into 
the nourishing blood and depriving it of its nutritive 
elements, leaving the nerves partially paralyzed and the 
brain stupefied? Parents should feel their responsibility 
in this matter, and take every precaution to prevent the 
formation of a habit which dwarfs the intellect, cor- 
rupts the morals and ultimately ruins any youth, no 
matter how bright and promising he may be. 

I have known parents who, with limited means, found 
it very difficult to educate their sons; yet with such care 
and patience was the task performed that when the boys 
were only 13 and 15 years old respectively, they showed 
the effect of memory training in an ability to read a 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 



page, close the book and repeat verbatim all the page 
contained, with clear understanding of the matter re- 
cited. So wise had been the parents' supervision that 
neither boy had been allowed to form the tobacco or any 
other injurious habit, and their standing in their classes 
was the best evidence that theirs was the work of clear, 
healthy brains. In striking contrast to these boys was 
another pupil in the same school, the handsome, spoiled 
son of a clergyman, whose standing after he acquired the 
tobacco habit steadily retrograded until he was unable 
to make a recitation, no matter how recently he had 
studied a subject. I have never known any boy to stand 
well in his classes who had used tobacco for any length 
of time. It is truthfully said to "enervate both mind and 
body, to stunt the growth, and to produce an abnormal 
precocity in the young." I doubt not that the tobacco 
habit destroys the pride and self-respect of its victim. 
Otherwise, when a bov found himself rated a back num- 
ber among his classmates, he would give up the vice 
which caused his decline. While all the miseries and 
mortifications which a student would ordinarily endure 
from repeated failure in his classes are seldom powerful 
enough to act as a check upon the tobacco user, they at 
least point a moral for those of his classmates who are 
attempting to acquire the habit, and who witness the 
stupefaction and bewilderment of the mind poisoned by 
tobacco. 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 31 

In practical business life, a good memory is of great 
value. The steps saved, the time gained, the annoy- 
ances avoided by one who remembers without reference 
to memoranda the time, place and circumstances of 
every transaction occurring through the day, makes it 
possible for him to accomplish twice as much as his busi- 
ness rival, hampered by a bad memory. An accurate 
memory is without doubt one of the most potent factors 
of a successful business life. 

It is said of James G. Blaine that he could remember 
the name and face of every person he had ever met, as 
well as the place and circumstances of the meeting. 
When we consider the thousands of people he must have 
registered in his memory* to do this, it seems an impos- 
sible feat. His ability in this direction doubtless con- 
tributed to his popularity and greatness as a statesman. 
The memory which had such powers of retention could 
readily seize upon and make its own any fact or inci- 
dent heard or read which would prove of use to its pos- 
sessor in his long congressional career. It was this mar- 
velous memory that made Mr. Blaine so formidable to 
his opponents in debate. Our martyred president, Lin- 
coln, was also able to readily recall anything ever 
grasped by his powerful intellect. Hence his ability to 
meet in joint debate the greatest American statesmen, 
and to acquit himself to the satisfaction of his support- 
ers and the lasting injury of the cause espoused by his 
opponents. 



32 EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 

We can pay the very aged no higher compliment than 
to say their memories are unimpaired. In Dickens' 
"Haunted Man" he has pictured with his master touch 
the unhappiness that fell to the lot of the man who of 
his own free will and for what he had supposed to be his 
greater comfort resigned his memory of sorrow, wrong 
and trouble. When he was contemplating the relief 
such loss of memory would bring him, he did not think 
that with the memory of the sorrow would go also the 
memory of the solace he had found; with the memory of 
wrong, the power to sympathize with the injured; with 
the memory of trouble, the compensation to be found in 
teaching others how to avoid it. So, by a desire to free 
himself from sad recollections, he placed himself beyond 
the reach of the most humanizing of emotions. Few 
who have felt the pathos of the story will fail to echo 
its concluding prayer: " Lord, keep my memory green." 
If such results would follow the loss of bitter memories, 
what can we say of the man or boy who wilfully takes 
it upon himself to undermine and destroy the faculty 
which is his best help as a student, his unwavering friend 
in business, and his greatest comfort in his declining 
years? We can exclaim, " What madness! What folly!" 
But how little we know or understand the loss he sus- 
tains unless bitter experience has borne it in upon us. 

Boys and young men should understand that while 
the body is growing and must be provided with material 



EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MEMORY. 33 

to repair the daily waste of tissue, as well as for growth 
and development, anything like tobacco, which impairs 
nutrition, must affect not only the nerves of special sense 
but the whole body injuriously. Instead of attempting 
to compel the body to eke out a scanty subsistence by 
diverting its food supply and poisoning its source of life, 
the greatest care should be exercised and the most stren- 
uous exertions made to build up the whole system as a 
preparation for a life of the best and highest usefulness. 

CHAPTER III. 

TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 

It is conceded by most scientists and the best medical 
men of the age that intemperance or inebriety is a dis- 
ease, and the remedies discovered for its cure within the 
past 25 years have proved so efficacious that there is 
scarcely a city, town or village in the civilized world 
which does not support one or more institutes for the 
treatment of inebriety. The graduates from these in- 
stitutes come from all classes of society, and in the ma- 
jority of cases we find that the victim of the disease has 
regained control of himself. These institutions are a 
product of our advanced civilization, with which has 
come a marked increase in drunkenness. So far as we 
can learn from history, man has always suffered more 
or less from the drinking habit, but until within the past 



34 TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 

three centuries the effect upon mankind has not been so 
marked with the general destruction of those who use 
stimulants liberally. With all our boasted intelligence and 
our knowledge of the evil that intemperance causes, 
there is a steady increase in the manufacture and con- 
sumption of stimulating beverages; and although phy- 
sicians have been able to find a cure for inebriety, the 
origin of the disease remains to be discovered. 

From observations which have extended over a period 
of forty years, I am fully convinced that 90 per cent, 
of all cases of inebriety, excluding hereditary alcohol- 
ism, are brought about by the use of tobacco. Those 
who use tobacco until it has secured a permanent hold 
upon them soon find that tobacco of itself does not fully 
satisfy the craving which its use engenders. Although 
tobacco is sedative and narcotic in its effects, its use pro- 
duces a desire for a stimulant, and the stimulant to be 
satisfying must be more prompt and exhilarating in its 
action than tobacco poison. Alcohol, the intoxicating 
element in all distilled liquors, attracts the tobacco lover, 
and in some of the many alcoholic beverages he finds a 
palatable exhilarant and betakes himself to excess in 
that direction. No one naturally possesses an appetite 
for stimulants, unless he inherits it from some bibulous 
ancestor. Once acquired, however, it grows upon the in- 
dividual, and unless held in check by a powerful will, 
soon leads to drunkenness. Few persons stop to con- 



TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 35 

sider how many of their fellow men suffer from ine- 
brietv. When we take into account that it is the rule 
for every city and town throughout the world to have 
more drinking saloons than churches, while the patron- 
age of the saloons by the male population is far in ex- 
cess of the attendance at houses of worship, it is evident 
that there is a widespread desire to become infected 
with the dangerous malady. Saloons for the sale of in- 
toxicants would never exist and prosper had they to de- 
pend entirely upon the support of the recruits attracted 
solely by their wares; but thanks to the aid which to- 
bacco affords them, the business is always profitable.. 
The saloon contingent is largely made up of the young 
and foolish, who fall into the places of the old wrecks 
who have burned themselves out with alcohol. The 
relief from gloom and depression — the after effects of 
the use of tobacco — afforded by the absorption of 
liquors, is superseded by an appetite for stimulants, and 
in the course of time drunkenness follows. Inebriety is 
not contagious in the ordinary sense ; yet millions are in- 
fected by the example of others, and so fall easy prey 
to the disease. 

It is a mystery why so many good people devote their 
time, money and energy to the temperance cause, yet 
never make an effort to stamp out that fertile source of 
intemperance — the tobacco habit. We have often heard 
men say that they never took intoxicants under any cir- 



TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 



cumstances, but in the past 45 years I have never known 
a tobacco user who did not use stimulants in the form 
of beer, wine or whisky, and without positive knowl- 
edge to the contrary, I would find it difficult to believe 
that a man did not use intoxicants whom I knew to use 
tobacco. The tobacco habit is parent of the drinking 
habit; the effect upon the system is much the same, only 
the results are reached by different routes, and are more 
pronounced in the drunkard's case than in that of the 
tobacco user. Those who battle with intemperance 
should commence to work at the foundation of the dis- 
ease and devote themselves first to curing the tobacco 
habit. There are few who cannot recall some young 
man of their acquaintance who smoked excessively, and 
who ended what might have been an honorable career 
in an inebriate asylum, the penitentiary, or a drunk- 
ard's grave. 

The excessive use of any stimulant deadens the sen- 
sibilities to the proprieties of life. This is evident in the 
ridiculous stories often told by those who are addicted 
to the use of liquors. We frequently hear statements 
so absurd that they brand their author as a confirmed 
inebriate, and, of course, not responsible for the exag- 
gerations in which he indulges. Many a respectable 
young man has been led into folly and crime through 
shaken nerves resulting from the excessive use of stimu- 
lants. Such a man would never have succumbed to evil 



TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 37 

influences if liis mind had been in a normal condition. 
The poison of tobacco and liquors so dulled his senses to 
the laws of society that they were rudely and ruthlessly 
broken and the man disgraced. 

Young men and boys should look upon the sots with 
which every community is cursed as a warning, and try 
to discover what brought these unfortunates to their 
fallen condition. Close investigation will usually show 
that the craving for intoxicants can easily be traced back 
to the tobacco habit. ISTo boy or young man can afford 
to take the risk that lies in indulgence in tobacco. There 
are people, blessed with robust constitutions, who can 
withstand the evil effects of tobacco for a long period 
without the injury becoming apparent to the casual ob- 
server. They are possessed of strong will power, and 
limit themselves to tobacco poison, never exceeding a 
certain amount of it; but no matter how strong the will, 
nor how great the physical strength, the poison is bound 
to sap the vitality, and, as age advances, rheumatism, 
heart trouble and a hundred ills that man by foolish in- 
dulgence and negligence has added to the burden of 
humanity, will follow upon the heels of the fleeting 
pleasure derived from the use of tobacco, until men who 
once rejoiced in their strength wonder, as they writhe 
in pain, or find themselves overtaken with sudden fee- 
bleness, where their boasted strength has gone, and few 



38 TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 

will admit that it has been stolen by that insidious foe, 
the tobacco habit. 

As health breaks and strength fails, stimulants are re- 
sorted to, with the result that the sound constitution 
which, nourished and built up by healthy blood, should 
have been equal to any strain encountered in an active 
life, must be bolstered up by artificial means to with- 
stand the approach of what, without the impairment 
chargeable to the tobacco habit, should have proved a 
restful and green old age. 

No graduate from an institution for inebriates can 
feel sure that he is cured if he continues the use of to- 
bacco. From the nature of the disease, the use of any 
narcotic or stimulant is more than likely to produce a 
relapse from which the patient cannot recover by taking 
another course of treatment. It rarely happens that a 
patient has a desire for tobacco while under treatment, 
but when he again mingles with his old associates and 
resumes the use of tobacco, the same old feeling of de- 
pression returns with such insistence that no considera- 
tion can keep him from yielding to his reawakened ap- 
petite for an alcoholic stimulant. Had tobacco been 
withheld, and had the victim abandoned that habit when 
he was on the highway to recovery from alcoholism, the 
treatment would have proved effective and his recovery 
of self-control would have been permanent. 

"While there are no available figures within reach to 



TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 39 

prove that the majority of inebriates lay the foundation 
of inebriety by using tobacco, yet there is no one who 
has given the subject any study who will deny that those 
who do not use tobacco in any form are comparatively 
free from the disease; and while any stimulant of an 
alcoholic nature will cause drunkenness when used to 
excess, the narcotic properties of tobacco create an ap- 
petite for alcoholic beverages, and so general is the use 
of tobacco throughout the world that it is safe to say 
it is the primary cause of intemperance in 90 per cent, 
of all cases. 

Young women should study this subject with great 
care. It is a fearful risk for any woman to ally herself 
to a man who has the tobacco habit. While the fumes 
of a cigar may become tolerable through familiarity and 
the manner of the smoker may be very captivating, yet 
in thousands of cases the results reached through the 
cigar smoke are a neglected wife, destitute children and 
a home wrecked by the selfish profligacy of the inebri- 
ate. For it is left to inebriety to develop fully that 
worst trait of humanity — selfishness. The victim of this 
disease never spares his family or his friends, frequently 
spending the money needed for food and clothing upon 
strangers and acquaintances to create an impression that 
he is kind and liberal. I have known two young people to 
begin married life with good prospects. The husband 
smokes. A few years passes. He drinks. A few more 



40 TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE. 

years, and the wife returns to her parents and procures 
a divorce. The husband may end his career in any of 
the ways open to an inebriate, or he may roam the coun- 
try a Weary "Willie; his fortune gone; his physical abil- 
ity wrecked; and his life a burden to himself and to 
those of his f ellowmen with whom he comes in contact. 
I have always admired the young woman who, when 
asked by a cigar-smoking acquaintance if she objected 
to gentlemen smoking in her presence replied quietly, 
"No gentleman ever did." If all women would take 
this spirited stand on the tobacco question, the use of to- 
bacco would soon fall into disrepute. 

Those who are working for the advancement of tem- 
perance should give more attention to alcohol's strong 
ally, tobacco; for so long as the use of tobacco is sanc- 
tioned by custom, it will be impossible to make any great 
headway against intemperance. 

CHAPTER IV. 

TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

Those who use tobacco are aware that its use is in- 
jurious, but the habit is formed thoughtlessly, and when 
it once has a firm hold upon its victim, it is no small 
matter to get rid of it. The majority of those who use 
tobacco believe that the habit will not seriously affect 
their success in business or their advancement in the 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 41 

several professions in which men engage. When they 
will admit that its use is injurious to them, they convey 
the impression that they are able to sustain a steady 
drain upon their vitality and at the same time prosecute 
their business to a successful issue. Such an idea is pre- 
posterous, but it is undoubtedly held by a large major- 
ity of those who use tobacco, and the result is that 
thousands fail signally in business life. The present age 
offers great opportunities for development to all who in- 
telligently and industriously work for advancement, but 
its requirements are such that unless one keeps in touch 
with the times he soon lags at the end of the procession 
No person can expect to win in the great life contest 
unless his faculties are in prime condition, and tobacco, 
of all articles of man's consumption, does most to de- 
teriorate and destroy the working of the human mechan- 
ism and unfit it for the active duties of life. !No one can 
truthfully claim that the use of tobacco improves his in- 
tellect or develops him physically, since it is well known 
that its use injures both brain and body. 

The rules of all athletic societies prohibit the use of 
tobacco, and with srood reason. When it comes to real 
endurance, where every particle of strength and cour- 
age is required to win, the tobacco-user is not to be de- 
pended upon. This fact is so well known that athletes 
who have the tobacco habit discard it while training for 
a severe contest, and until the trial is over. In the old 



42 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

Grecian games, the contestants threw aside everything 
which might prove a hindrance, and prepared them- 
selves for months, and sometimes for years, that they 
might at last win a laurel crown and the applause of the 
spectators. In the struggle for advancement in the 
nineteenth century, contestants must prepare them- 
selves as carefully and keep in the best possible condi- 
tion to reach the coveted goal. What we now regard as 
the necessities of life were looked upon as luxuries in 
the last century. The simple mode of life pf our an- 
cestors is no longer open to us, and it requires all of 
training and education that a young man can obtain, in 
these times of unrivaled educational facilities, to insure 
him the means of securing a good livelihood. 

Many claim that young men do not now have the op- 
portunities that their fathers had when they started in 
life. In the early history of the country, land was cheap 
and less capital was required to engage in most enter- 
prises than is the case at present. Yet in the early days 
it was harder for the young man beginning business life 
than it is today. Many a man worked as a day laborer 
to obtain money wherewith to educate himself, and 
finished his education by teaching school, when he was 
qualified to do so, at from $20 to $30 per month. At 
present, a teacher can command from $40 to $125 per 
month, with more positions to be filled, in proportion to 
the population, than there were 40 to 60 years ago. 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 43 

Great complaint is made that improved machinery is 
displacing men and reducing the rate of wages; but the 
facts do not bear out the statement. Young men can 
find employment on railroads now at from $40 to $150 
per month. Such wages or employment could not have 
been procured 70 years ago. The army of people re- 
quired by telegraph, telephone and express companies 
would have gone a long way toward giving employment 
to laboring people 50 years ago, and the wages are from 
three to four times better than any wages obtainable 60 
or 70 years ago. Every labor-saving machine placed 
upon the market adds to the dignity of labor, and in 
most cases enhances the wages of the laborers who use 
it. Those who believe that machinery reduces the price 
of labor should stop to think. The man who used to 
cradle grain at 50 to 75 cents per day is supplanted by 
the man who drives the binder at from $1.50 to $2.50 
per day. The man who drove the horse at 50 cents to 
$1 per day is superseded by the engineer who receives 
from $2.50 to $3.50 per day. The printer who worked 
at from $5 to $8 per week and less is replaced by the 
typesetter who commands from $15 to $25 per week 
and more, according to his ability and skill. Instead of 
machinery injuring labor, it has increased the chances 
to labor, and greatly augmented the wages paid to those 
who wish to work, provided they have fitted themselves 



44 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

for the changed conditions which improved machinery 
has brought about. 

Professional men claim that their ranks are over- 
crowded. Colleges and seminaries are daily adding to 
the numbers in all professions; yet there are greater 
chances to succeed in every profession today than have 
ever before offered in the history of the world. When 
a lawyer can leave a practice which is giving him an 
income of $200,000 per year to engage in lecturing, it 
would indicate that the lecture field is not fully filled, 
and that there is good compensation in legal business for 
men of ability. A clergyman receives from $3,000 to 
$20,000 per year for filling a pulpit in a fashionable 
church in any of our large cities, aside from what he 
may earn outside his church work by writing and lec- 
turing, which in many cases will exceed his salary as a 
minister. Men of ability who have fitted themselves for 
their work succeed by close application and industry. 
Those who reach the top are not loaded down with bad 
habits. Their minds must be clear, their actions un- 
trammeled and prompt. Young men who wish to get 
on in the world should understand the importance of 
good health, and the great impairment to all the facul- 
ties which follows the continued use of tobacco. As has 
been said heretofore, the digestion first suffers; then the 
organs which are weakest follow in order until the whole 
human machinery is wrecked. A man to succeed should 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 45 

be free to forget himself in his undertaking. If he is 
in pain or discomfort he will not be able to give that 
attention to the affairs in hand which insures success. 
The indulgence which a man allows himself in the use 
of tobacco is enervating; besides, tobacco has a tendency 
to produce a stupid condition of the nerves, which must- 
be overcome by sleep and rest that frequently encroach 
upon working hours which are of great value to him who 
is laying the foundation for a competency for old age. 
Napoleon said that "Two o'clock in the morning courage 
wins battles. " The energy and grit that will get out a 
tired and sleepy soldier at 2 o'clock in the morning is 
seldom found in the person who permits himself to in- 
dulge in the tobacco habit. Young people who wish to 
succeed in life should know that there are many men 
with capital who are taxing themselves beyond their 
strength simply because they cannot find suitable as- 
sistants to whom a part of their business can be safely 
intrusted. Even in the depressed times of 1896 and 
1897, when men can be had for their board on the farm 
during the winter, trustworthy men with good habits 
can obtain work at $20 per month and board, and the 
supply will not fill the demand. Such men can save 
over $200 per year, and from three to four years' work 
for others enables them to start up for themselves. The 
trouble with many people who are compelled to work for 
their living is that they drift through life without re- 



46 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

sponsibility or worry; hence the packing together in flats 
and tenements in the cities of vast numbers who free 
themselves of every possible care in order that they may 
indulge their disordered appetites with tobacco, beer and 
whisky. There are exceptions to every rule, and so there 
are to this one, but facts bear out the above statement 
with reference to the majority who so environ them- 
selves. The happy-go-lucky Irishman, when he lost his 
only cow, reconciled himself to the situation by the re- 
flection, "No cow, no care;" but the person who passes 
through life without any care for the things that make 
life worth living will soon be advancing the argument 
that the world owes him a living; unless he is luckier 
than the generality of men he will find the debt scarcely 
worth collecting. 

The man who determines that the world shall furnish 
him a good living for meritorious work performed sel- 
dom, if ever, fails. Merit will win, and the longer the 
reward is delayed, the greater it will be in the end. Al- 
though great strides have been made in the progress of 
mankind during the last three centuries, yet the world's 
resources are only partially developed, and far greater 
advancement will be made in the near future if the 
young men of the twentieth century enter the field prop- 
erly equipped for good work. Large amounts of capital 
lie waiting in the great money centers for the promoters 
who can show safe and reliable returns for investments. 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 47 

Men of brains and energy have greater opportunities 
than ever offered before. Africa and Asia, with their 
teeming populations, are opening up to civilization. 
The development of these continents is barely com- 
menced. Europe and our United States will furnish, in 
great measure, the brains and material for enterprises 
which will add wonderfully to the commerce and indus- 
tries of the world and furnish employment to vast num- 
bers of people. It is undoubtedly true that we are just 
at the outer edge of a great, though peaceful, revolution 
— a forward movement of the wheels of progress — but 
it is going to require a high order of men and women 
workers to bring it about. Young people should realize 
that while their advantages are many fold greater than 
the beginning of the present century afforded, increased 
advantages bring added cares and responsibilities. The 
farmer who highly fertilizes his land makes additional 
work for himself in a stimulated growth of weeds; yet 
with intelligent care and well-directed labor a more 
bountiful crop doubly recompenses him. 

The conveniences and labor saving devices which go 
to make life pleasant and profitable in the nineteenth 
century require a greater exercise of skill and brain 
power than did the time-consuming methods and tools of 
our fathers. "For this reason, if no other, no young man 
should permit his nerves to grow shaky and his faculties 
dull from using tobacco. From tests we have made on 



48 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

the farm, we find that men of the same ability, mentally 
and physically, are worth $2 per month more for the 
year where they do not use tobacco than those who do. 
During the intense heat of summer, the non-tobacco 
user is seldom affected, and throughout the year his work 
is generally good, rather than spasmodically so ; he is able 
to hold in his mind, while performing one duty, what 
comes next, and his work shows system and order; while 
the tobacco victim is seldom able to complete his con- 
tract without a lay-off for sickness, and always must be 
favored, more or less, owing to being out of condition. 
Men who have rapid mental work to perform, such as 
bank cashiers, train dispatchers, etc., find that tobacco 
soon unfits them for business; and unless they brace 
themselves up and drop the habit, they are compelled to 
seek rest and sometimes- are entirely unfitted for any 
kind of work. Railroad companies and all corporations 
who are liable for the carelessness of their employes are 
growing more rigid in their rules regarding the use of 
stimulants; while none of these companies will permit 
the use of intoxicants by men on duty, there are many 
that will not employ a man known to use stimulants at 
any time, and the regulations are becoming more strin- 
gent in this respect. When it becomes more generally 
known that the use of tobacco is almost as inimical to 
trustworthiness and fidelity as are stimulants, the rules 
will be extended to exclude the tobacco-user. There are 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 49 

millions of people who believe that the stimulants they 
use will injure no one; and many moderate drinkers suc- 
ceed in performing their duties satisfactorily for years; 
yet there is no employer who can afford to take the risk 
which the use of intoxicants by his employes would en- 
tail upon him. So it is with tobacco. Many believe they 
can use it without injury to their business; but the nar- 
cotic poison will eventually impair their usefulness, and 
instead of becoming of more value to themselves and 
their employers as the years go by, they deteriorate and 
decay. On all sides we meet men little past middle age 
who are prematurely old. Their hair is whitened, their 
limbs shrunken, their memory gone; they bear every in- 
dication of a misspent life, which in nine cases out of 
ten can be traced to the immoderate use of tobacco in 
their youth. Such men have not the physical strength 
needed to make a success of their business. On the other 
hand, when you meet a man who has never used tobacco 
or stimulants, you will find a person who retains his full 
vigor long after middle age; his hair seldom turns white 
until after sixty years have passed over his head; his 
eves retain their brightness until his head is gray; and 
such a man is never much of a burden to his friends. 
Men of this stamp usually succeed in business. Through 
an experience which has extended over four decades, T 
have never known a man with good sense and good hab- 
its, who had worked faithfullv and intelligent! v twenty 



50 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

years, who had not accomplished his object in life; fre- 
o.uently he attains it in half that time. It is an old 
maxim that "There is only a year between a rich man 
and a poor man" — sometimes a much shorter period; but 
no one should expect to succeed unless he complies with 
the rules of life that govern the conduct of the successful 
man. One of the most essential of these rules is to keep 
in the best possible condition physically; for such a con- 
dition conduces to mental growth, and unless a man 
grows mentally his success is generally short-lived. 

The action of tobacco on the nerve centers is of a de- 
moralizing nature; it produces languor which unfits a 
man for the prompt action necessary to success in this 
age of steam and electricity, when space and time are 
practically annihilated. Local conditions no longer con- 
trol prices where it is necessary to come into competition 
with the markets of the world. One country may be 
suffering from famine, while its adjoining neighbor is 
distressed by a surplus of food products; but with the 
improved facilities for transportation, such conditions 
can be equalized. Men should be so educated as to be 
able to grasp the situation, and neither be unduly de- 
pressed nor over-elated by business happenings. The vicis- 
situdes of life are manv, and often extreme. A man to 
be successful should have plenty of reserve force, and 
instead of depleting his physical power and mental abil- 
ity by the use of tobacco, he should in times of prosper- 



TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 51 

ity prepare himself for the misfortunes of life. To do 
this it is necessary that he should keep himself free from 
an appetite for narcotics and stimulants, since they do 
so much to destroy the nerve and grit of those who in- 
dulge in them. 

There are many people in this world who think they 
are working when they keep the smoke going in an old 
black pipe; but such labor does not add much to the as- 
sessable wealth of the country. If LLj time so misspent 
did no further injury than to retard the growth of the 
country, it might be easily overlooked; but men who so 
indulge do more than waste time and burn up poor to- 
bacco. The energy and buoyancy that float out with the 
tobacco smok© would go far to make a success of their 
business life. The young man who spends his time 
shortening cigarettes not only succeeds in that operation, 
but at the same time cuts short what might otherwise 
prove an honorable and useful career. Scientists now 
generally hold to what they call the "doctrine of the con- 
servation of energy"; that is, that no force, no matter 
how slight, goes to waste, but that once expended, it is 
utilized somewhere in the universe. If any of these gen- 
tlemen will study a tobacco user for a few minutes, and 
note the force and energy thrown into smoking or chew- 
ing, as the case may be, he will probably decide that he 
has before him the best possible refutation of that doc- 
trine. 



52 TOBACCO AND BUSINESS. 

It is useless to dwell longer upon these facts. Fra- 
grant tobacco smoke, exhilarating wine, beer and whisky 
all produce the same results; debased manhood, unre- 
warded efforts. Let the energetic and ambitious young 
man leave them alone. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

We often hear men say that they can discontinue the 
use of tobacco whenever they wish to do so. This state- 
ment is true in a certain sense, but it needs to be quali- 
fied. Let a man abstain from any article of food which 
he likes, and which daily use has made necessary to his 
comfort, before he declares that it is a light matter to 
give up any cherished item of diet. Although tobacco 
is neither food nor drink, to many people it seems more 
essential than either. True, no one has a desire for it 
until he cultivates it, but the appetite once acquired is 
more insistent in its demands than ordinary hunger or 
thirst. A man who would not think of carrying a lunch 
with him when he expected to be at home at mealtime, 
will carefully fill his cigar case or tobacco pouch before 
venturing out the shortest distance. 

The act of using tobacco stamps the person using it as 
one who deliberately caters to the lower instincts of his 
nature. The worst side of humanity has always been 



HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 53 

fully developed, and it is a waste of time to carry the 
work further. Surrendering to the self -created appetite 
for tobacco retards the growth and development of both 
mind and body. Yielding to our baser instincts, our 
higher nature is dwarfed, our progress checked and our 
lives wasted. 

Although it is more difficult to quit using tobacco than 
most people think, many thousands do so every year for 
various reasons. Most of those who give up the habit are 
compelled to such a course through motives of self -pro- 
tection, for the ravages tobacco works in their systems 
become so evident that to continue its use is suicidal. 
All who have had experience in getting rid of the habit 

admit that giving it up is very trying to the nerves. 
Like acquiring a fortune, there is no royal road to the 
desired goal, Substitutes are useless. There are many 
^o-called tobacco "cures," but the user will find that only 
the exercise of his will will enable him to get rid of the 
habit. After experimenting on fully fifty people, I have 
come to the conclusion that the remedies offered for this 
vice do little toward effecting a permanent cure. Only 
a man who has perfect self-control could follow the di- 
rections where a cure is guaranteed, and unless he obeys 
orders of course he cannot recover his money, so that, 
in most cases, he has a profitless experience in exchange 
for the outlay he has made, and in the end must fall back 
on his will to quit the habit. 

I would advise those who think of giving up tobacco 



54 HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

to consider the matter seriously before they make the at- 
tempt, for unless a man is fully determined to quit, he 
only causes himself and his friends annoyance to no good 
purpose, and the usual result of a failure is to give the 
habit a firmer hold. No one knows in what a grasp he 
is held until he tries to give up tobacco and fails. How- 
ever, it would not be so hard if the person, when he first 
makes the attempt, would hold out against the habit. 
He has prepared himself for a great struggle, which he 
is fully prepared to resist, and when at first he does not 
experience so much discomfort as he expected, he per- 
mits himself to indulge once more. This is a fatal error. 
As soon as the nerves find that they can have their ac- 
customed sedative by demanding it, they become clam- 
orous, and as the victim allowed himself to relapse once, 
why not again? Every time he gives waj to the craving 
for tobacco he has fiercer opposition to meet when he 
next makes an effort to abstain. If he has an earnest de- 
sire to rid himself of the habit, he should never permit 
tobacco to enter his mouth after he once definitely de- 
termines to give it up. Many times he will have an al- 
most unconquerable longing for a smoke or a chew, but 
every time he overcomes the feeling he will make him- 
self so much stronger for the next attack, and as he re- 
gains self-mastery, the craving will come at wider and 
wider intervals and weaken in intensity until he no 
longer cares for tobacco, and is astonished to find himself 
cured. 



HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 55 

Too much stress cannot be laid upon a proper choice 
of associates when one is trying to throw off any bad 
habit. I have known men who succeeded very well in 
their efforts to overcome the tobacco habit until they en- 
countered some old acquaintance who thoroughly en- 
joyed smoking or chewing. The influence exerted by 
him as his person radiated the satisfaction he derived 
from the weed would prove sufficient to dispel all good 
resolutions of a recently reclaimed victim, and eventu- 
ally he would hungrily beg for some of that tobacco! 
To successfully restrain himself at such a time, it some- 
times helps one to carry tobacco with him, the possession 
of w^hich makes him independent of his acquaintances. 
I suppose that having it in his pockets keeps him on the 
lookout for a surprise from the enemy, and meeting his 
tobacco-loving friends when his nerves are braced, he is 
able to control himself. On the other hand, there are 
many cases where a man who has given up tobacco meets 
a friend, who testifies his pleasure at the chance encoun- 
~ ter by inviting the non-user to drink with him. Not 
caring to do so, he may say, "No, I will take a cigar," and 
put one in his pocket intending to hand it to some smok- 
er of his acquaintance. He forgets all about it until 
some time he accidentally finds it, and before he realizes 
what he is doing he is puffing away at it simply from 
force of habit, and the last state of that man may be 
worse than the first. It will not be difficult for anyone 



56 HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

to decide whether his interests will be best subserved by- 
carrying tobacco with him while quitting the habit. In 
any case, it is a great advantage to have associates who do 
not use tobacco. The influence of those about us is a 
potent factor for good or ill, and the utmost care should 
be taken to avoid those who indulge in this popular vice 
if one wishes to break away from it. If one is in an at- 
mosphere reeking with tobacco smoke, he will be more 
or less affected by it, and in case he has renounced the 
habit, it cannot but endanger the success of his under- 
taking. The old copybook maxim, "Evil communica- 
tions corrupt good manners," holds good in such a case. 
Many tobacco users enjoy throwing temptations in the 
way of those who are trying to reform. They are pro- 
fuse in their offers of tobacco until their victim renews 
the habit; then their liberality ceases. 

A man who is undergoing the hardship of quitting to- 
bacco should, on no account, permit himself to use intox- 
icating drinks. Stimulants call for narcotics, and nar- 
cotics lead to the use of stimulants, so that one glass of 
any kind of liquor may prove sufficient to revive a desire 
for tobacco, and then the old struggle is on again. Be- 
sides, men who frequent drinking resorts use tobacco, as 
a rule, and very few men have the stamina to keep up 
the struggle for self-mastery amid such surroundings and 
among such companions. 

One cause of relapse into the tobacco habit is some 



HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 57 

temporal success. In the glow of exultation over any 
achievement the reformed tobacco user is too likely to 
relax his vigilance and fall back into the old habit 
through sheer carelessness more than from an actual 
wish for tobacco, perhaps because he feels the need of 
dissipating his buoyant spirits. The failure to control 
himself causes the victim to lose confidence in himself; 
and he rarely has the courage to begin the fight anew; 
so it is evident that it is folly to give up the habit unless 
one is firmly determined on no account to indulge in 
tobacco, or in any stimulant or narcotic which will fill its 
place with his abused nerves. 

There are those who try to fortify themselves in the 
use of tobacco by citing the names of prominent men 
who use it, or who have used it, and boldly state that its 
use did not interfere with their success. There are many 
tilings to be considered before we can go so far as to say 
that tobacco does not or has not injured these men. A 
man may fill a prominent position and yet be a long way 
from a successful and happy career. Then, one who did 
not begin to use tobacco until he was fully matured 
might accomplish a great amount of work before its 
ravages became noticeable; yet no one, aside from him- 
self, can ever know the will power required to overcome 
the lassitude produced by his pet vice. The same force- 
ful effort directed to the furtherance of the work in 
which he was engaged would, without doubt, have added 



58 HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

materially to its success. Of the few great names used 
to support the theory of tobacco's harmlessness, take 
those who have lived to a good old age, and inquire of 
what they died, and what degree of comfort they enjoyed 
through life. Many invalids drag out a long, miserable 
existence and greatly benefit the world without knowing 
what it is to enjoy life. Many great men have suc- 
cumbed to nervous disorders, or have suffered through 
life from dyspepsia and other diseases supposed to have 
been caused by too great devotion to an intellectual 
career, who might well lay the foundation of their mal- 
adies to' their well beloved and presumably innocent nar- 
cotic, rather than to healthy mental effort. Lack of ex- 
ercise and the use of tobacco probably explain the irri- 
tability of some of them. 

One source of annoyance resulting from giving up 
tobacco is the feeling of stupidity which seizes upon the 
reformed as his sulky nerves, deprived of their usual 
solace, refuse to respond to the calls upon them. 
This sensation can best be combatted by additional ex- 
ertion, which, of course, is a hardship in itself, when one 
feels so little disposed to exertion; but the lasting benefit 
derived from such an exercise of strength and will is 
sufficient reward. When once the nerves have been 
brought under control, the sense of stupor and heaviness 
vanishes. Kichard is himself again, and is surprised at the 
feeling of buoyancy and freedom which permeates his 



HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 59 

being, and which a thousand times rewards him for sac- 
rificing his tobacco. 

The peach once handled loses its bloom, never to be 
regained, though its eatable qualities may be uninjured. 
So it is with the person who uses tobacco. The natural 
luster of his hair can never be restored to him, and no 
cosmetic known to art will give back to him the complex- 
ion which was the evidence of healthy, undrugged blood. 
Women who are tempted to toy with the cigarette should 
bear these facts in mind. 

Tt should be remembered that, although there are ex- 
ceptions to every rule, one stands no better chance to 
escape the hurtful influence of tobacco than he would 
have had of passing scathless through the Russian bullets 
had he been in the charge of the Light Brigade at Bala- 
klava. There were those who escaped the wholesale de- 
struction there, though their comrades fell by hun- 
dreds around them, and so it will be through all time; 
but who can afford to take the chances of evading the 
evils of the tobacco habit? Who can afford to forego the 
real pleasures of life in order to acquire an objectionable 
appetite ? To live is an inestimable privilege, and to en- 
joy life one should be wide awake and thoroughly alive, 
nor partially stupefied by a narcotic. It is unlikely that 
we shall have another chance in this world to amend our 
lives or repair our mistakes, so we should try to make the 
most of our present opportunities, which we cannot do 
with beclouded faculties. 



60 HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

In the foregoing pages I have tried to point out some 
of the difficulties which one has to meet who tries to give 
up tobacco. I do this from the conviction that one is 
more likely to succeed if he knows in advance the na- 
ture of the obstacles he must overcome. I do not urge 
any one to quit using tobacco unless he fully believes its 
use is injurious to him. It has been my aim to show 
that tobacco works irreparable harm to those who use it, 
and my own bitter experience enables me to fully sympa- 
thize with the sufferers perplexed about its use. 

There will always be those who will use tobacco, 
though as the world advances and its effect on mankind 
is more fully understood, parents and guardians will ex- 
ert themselves to prevent their young charges from 
forming an appetite for it. This can best be done by 
pointing out the evils resulting from its use. Already 
some of the more progressive colleges return the money 
of students who use tobacco and are unwilling to relin- 
quish the habit, and dismiss them from their class rooms, 
rather than risk associating non-using students with 
them. Such colleges should have the commendation and 
patronage of parents who feel their own responsibility 
in the matter, and that " An ounce of prevention is 
worth a pound of cure." 

Any rational person can renounce tobacco, but it is 
not the light matter that those who use it would have 
others believe it to be. The aim of this work is to deter 



HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 61 

the young and thoughtless from forming a habit which 
will entail upon them incredible misery, simply to grat- 
ify their curiosity about a narcotic which is wholly use- 
less and fearfully destructive to human pleasure and 
happiness. If what I have already said fails to accom- 
plish this purpose, nothing I can add would have greater 
effect. Those who have the habit know the evils it 
causes, but in most cases they continue to indulge, hop- 
ing against hope that they may be the fortunate ones 
who will escape the punishment which the use of tobacco 
brings upon humanity. It is a vain hope, for sooner or 
later the mortgage they are giving on their -futures will 
fall due, the debt must be paid, and the almost inevitable 
consequence is foreclosure and ruin. 

To those who wish to rid themselves of this vice while 
there is yet time, I would say: Firmly resolve that -it 
shall never again, in any form, cross your lips. To 
carry out this resolution, shun chewing, smoking and 
drinking associates, and endeavor, so far as possible, to 
surround yourselves with companions whose society fos- 
ters lofty purposes. To overcome the wearing depression 
consequent on giving up the habit, try Nature's great 
anodyne — work. Engage in gome undertaking which 
requires all your time and thoughts, and cling to it per- 
sistently until both craving and depression have left you, 
when you will probably find you have accomplished 
something of worth which you might otherwise have 



62 HOW TO QUIT USING TOBACCO. 

never attempted. Lastly, and most important of all, re- 
fuse to be surprised or taken at a disadvantage by your 
ancient enemy. " Let him who thinketh lie standeth 
take heed lest he fall." Just when you are congratulat- 
ing yourself upon an easy victory, won for all time, some 
act of carelessness, some slight accident, may throw you 
off your guard, and the fight will be on again with new 
and terrible intensity, before you have time to brace 
yourself for the struggle. Stubbornly resist, refuse to 
be downed, and the battle is yours, and you will have 
wrung from the conflict the strength which is to make 
vou henceforth invulnerable. 



